How to Rigorous Interview for Software Developers

How to Rigorous Interview for Software Developers? There’s no magic bullet for Software Developers but here are some advices that may be helpful while hiring Software Developers.

Rigorous Interview for Software Developers

1. Testing Assumptions from the Resume

Candidates use the resume to portray themselves in a positive light. However, sometimes this positivity becomes their misrepresentation if their resume is based on false statements. If the resume is saying, “expert in technology X“, then you might assume that the candidate just knows the name of technology X. And if the resume says, “Worked altogether in a group that created a multi-threaded trading site,” then you should expect that the candidate just changed the background colors. You should be strict as “Resumes often LIE”. If someone says that he is an expert or has a PhD then it’s easy to make assumptions of their skills. But it’s better suggested not to assume but Test.

At first, from the resume, try to get a glimpse of what the candidate actually did. For instance:

If it says: Created a real-time operating system as a semester project.

How many persons in the groups were there? 15? Oh, then what was your part? A Message queue? Great! Explain what happens when some high priority task sends a message to some low priority task?

If it says: Developed from scratch an audio transfer protocol

Team members? Just you? Awesome, how did you test it? Did you use RTP? No? Why? Can you describe a bug that was specifically challenging, and how it was fixed?

First, pass a few simple “Hello World” online tests.

It sounds crazy but sometimes developers are not able to meet this. Such tests should be taken online and the purpose is not to prove that the programmer is a coding genius but he really knows about the program basics or what the program does.

2. Ask to see their portfolio

Good developers have their portfolio that you may ask for. Just like:

A thumbnail that you made to help others on internet

Refer me to an open-source code repository of your stuff.

Got any professional blog?

Okay, some other word I’ve never heard of?

3. Finding hidden time

Some developers start coding when they are in second year of university and some have been interested right from the childhood. This hidden time is not mentioned on resume, and should be coaxed out while interviewing.

Why you chose software development field?

First language you learned?

4. Finding True Experience

Having experience is a good indication as an experienced person knows about the troubleshooting. He has faced problems in field and know when to be relaxed and when to be pedantic.

5. Verifying Experience

After having a little sense of his experience, it’s time to verify by asking different questions like applications and software development fields. Sometimes you cannot judge the correctness of answers in fields that are unfamiliar to you. In case, it’s better to conduct several interviews.

If another developer is overloaded and one of his projects is assigned to you, what you will be doing if facing difficulty in code.

Here is the qualifier question. A junior developer will answer that he will be referring to the other programmer for help or if he is enthusiastic then he might look for it. These answers are distinct so do not mix in junior developers. These both answers will be blossoming in the field.

6. Going further

These are just simple questions that refer to their field. Some interviewers might go for puzzles etc. just to test their IQ level that may not involve any coding.